Samurai Chef Steak & Sushi

Walked in just as they opened, the table tops still had not been turned on and they had a rush already! It was really good. The ragoons are amazing! I had crab, my wife had the smoked salmon, the smoked salmon was out of this world!
I had the shrimp sushi, it was really good, I wasn’t to crazy about the mint but it was a nice balance.
The Mongolian BBQ display was fun and pretty well rehearsed. The steak smelt amazing.
The store is said to be scheduled for remodel, it could use that, otherwise it’s a nice place to go. I’m looking forward to our next visit.

My Japanese food person (fancy handler) was not Japanese. He was Hispanic. Most of the food was Chinese. He also cut my steak up into little pieces. Wife and daughter loved it. I am coming back.

This place has gone downhill. I honestly don’t know how it’s still running. Every time I get sushi for carry out, it’s disgusting! It’s disappointing to spend money on food that taste terrible. I ordered a Philadelphia roll that has salmon, cream cheese and avocado in it. The avocado didn’t even look right and the salmon looked expired… Don’t waste your money on this place.

Best hibachi grill in the city. Blows Gojos away! I wish we lived closer so we could go there more frequently.

Sit down and make yourselves comfortable, children, it’s time for a true horror story.
I went out to visit some family who lived in Kansas City MO and decided that while I was out there to treat my sister to some sushi, I was highly recommended to go to this location as it had the highest sushi ratings around the area and I figured I’d give sushi a shot for the first time outside of Los Angeles.
I regret coming here.
I’ll say that the sushi was just OKAY, maybe a little less than OKAY because their selection was also very limited. The price is fine, but they could probably charge a little less due to the quality of service provided here. My sister and I sat down at a table, actually a nasty dirty table, it had soy sauce all over the place, it looked like a sushi war zone, but it was the only table available at the time so we took a seat.
We waited a good 15 minutes before any waitresses realized we had been there, I actually had to get up and go talk to a waitress to let her know we were waiting to be served. She apologized and said she’d be right there to clean the table and bring us a menu.
Another 15 minutes goes by, she finally sees us (keep in mind this place was NOT packed or as busy as it could have been to have made us wait so long) and remembers we were waiting, she brings us a menu and sees our nasty table and says;
«Oh I’ll send someone right over to clean that for you» and I’m like alrighty it’s fine. Even tho she had a rag on her it only needed like one good wipe, I wouldn’t have complained.
My sister and I pick out the sushi we want, a Spicy Tuna, Alaskan, an Unagi with Avocado and some Sea Bass Sashimi. After another moment or two I flag down another random waitress because I didn’t feel like waiting another 15 minutes for OUR waitress to remember us again so I gave our order to another girl who was just walking around finding something to do. I asked her to clean our table, she apologized and said she’d be right back to clean it.
She never came back, in fact we never saw that particular waitress again for the rest of the time we are there. By this time, after waiting another 20 minutes just for our water and food to be brought to us, people had left and more much cleaner tables had cleared up so we just moved seats entirely. I mean, if she at least brought me a napkin I would have cleaned it myself… I guess I’m a terrible person for expecting people to at least perform the minimum at their jobs.
We wait and wait for another good 15 minutes, not even joking, they finally bring us water and our orders. Finally! All that waiting for almost 2 hours and being pissed off sure made me hungry. They most certainly didn’t feel rushed enough so I had hoped the sushi would pay off for the wait.
I’m pretty sure I’ve had better sushi made in grocery stores, after having sitting out for a few hours first. I’m not saying it’s awful, I’ve tasted awful sushi before, but it’s just not worth waiting 2 hours for. Spicy Tuna was actually very acceptable to me, I really enjoyed it, mostly because I was borderline starving and just needed food. Alaskan Roll wasn’t an Alaskan roll, it was smoked salmon wrapped in rice with cucumber and spicy mayo. That is fine, I’ll just deal with that, we are in MISSOURI after all… Unagi wasn’t so bad, but again, had the quality of a supermarket pre-​made sushi.
Overall, the sushi wasn’t hideously awful.
The people sitting next to us felt bad for our experience here because they had never seen such awful service in their time being regulars at this place, they offered us a shot of hot sake and apologized on behalf of their favorite sushi restaurant. The Sake helped with the rating, I think.
But wait, it gets better guys.
It isn’t until I get home later that I realize the whole thing was a big big mistake, because their sushi gave me severe food poisoning, as bad as it can possibly get without going to a hospital. Essentially, my upset bowels were so aggressively active I’m pretty sure they’d name it one of the 7 Wonders of the world and they’d build a whole tour around it. It persisted for quite a few days afterwards and all I could do in the midst of the painful, firey suffering was to curse this sushi place to the depths of hell for putting me through this at all.
(TLDR) Too Long Didn’t Read?
Don’t eat here if you’re from California (or are a human), it’s a joke.
And your anus will become the punchline.
And no, I didn’t leave a tip.
I wanted to give this place 1 star, but the people who sat next to us were incredibly nice and seemed very apologetic for our experience and did what they could to help us leave with some form of positivity. Which is very sad because they didn’t work there but still felt like trying to stick up for what dignity the place might have had with us and the impression it left on us.
Also that table never got cleaned.

Very long wait time after ordering, the sushi chef didn’t seem to be hurrying either. Received my sashimi about 20– 25 minutes after ordering, and one piece of the fish was still frozen when I received it. We decided to order more, but there was never a server around, finally had to order menu items directly from the sushi chef. It took around thirty minutes to get our bill. Sushi is okay, nothing too spectacular… Pretty baseline average. Will not go back, bad service. Read the reviews previously listed, and decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, but was not satisfied.

Good food, typical pricing. (I spent $ 45/​$ 55 w/​tip for one) I ordered the filet, lobster, and chicken with extra fried rice. Water. The overall experience was satisfying. There’s better, and there’s worse. If you’re new to hibachi, you’ll like it, of you’re well familiar– you’ll know there’s far better. Still, not bad.
By my tone, you decide.

My wife and I had lunch here last week. The food and service were fine but the portions were very small. Unfortunately, we were both hungry again after just a couple of hours. This restaurant needs to understand that they are feeding people, not birds!

I feel bad rating this because I’m not a sushi master. (I wanted to use «connaseur» instead of «master» but I’m misspelling it so bad, spell check is telling me to get lost.)
Basically it’s overpriced Asian cuisine in Independence.
There is much better quality out there for less cost. We tried the sushi once and the steakhouse once. The price and quality don’t match up as they should. Not impressed but not disgusted.

I DO NOT reccommend this place unless you can get past the bad service and dingy dirty surroundings. I went last night with a friend of mine to the sushi bar portion of the restaurant. Upon walking in, the restaurant was dirty looking. After we were seated, I noticed the area in which we were sitting had not been wiped down, the floor had not been swept, and I had a dirty water glass and a dirty plate.
We had to wait 40 minutes for the sushi chef to show up to even start making our meal. On top of that, while we waited, we saw an employee drinking beer from a bottle while cleaning tables in the main steakhouse dining room. When we finally did get our food, the order was incorrect.
We were offered free sake for our 40 minute wait and the food was good but that was not enough to make me ever want to go back. Sorry. BAD SERVICE AND DIRTY RESTAURANT EQUALS NEVER AGAIN!

Only been there once and won’t go again. Can only think the good reviews on here are based on lack of anything good to compare it to. Independence is not a sushi Mecca. Seriously. Venture out of the zip code for some really good food.

I’m a fan of teppanyaki places (what I call Big Kabuki Dining) and this is one of the better ones I’ve found in the area. I met some friends here for dinner on a Saturday night. The outside is rather nondescript, but the interior is decorated in a pleasant pseudo-​Japanese style, with a large fountain near the front of the dining room. It was busy & noisy, but not overwhelmingly so.
Service was a tad spotty; I had to ask twice for my water. Our chef was right on, though. He went through the same set of tricks that they all do, but also chatted with us a bit & generally made things fun.
The food was well-​prepared & delicious. The starters — onion soup (too salty) and salad (unremarkable) didn’t wow me, but everything off the grill was good. In addition to the grilled meats, thrown shrimp, veggies, and fried rice, we got a serving of soba noodles with a savory sauce. It was a ton of food for a quite reasonable price, we all took some home.
Great place to take the kids!

Forget the other reviewers. Each and every time I eat here, the service is superb, the dining area spic and span, the cooking is a show in and of itself. Class Act, I typed in my Facebook status.
Started off with sushi, which I chose shrimp tempura sushi. This is my first time eating sushi, which was $ 1 tonight. The shrimp tempura was $ 4.95. $ 1 sushi, $ 4.95 shrimp tempura? I’ll be back next week. (In the summer, I’ll walk there, to burn off the calories of what I’m eating).
Then we had crab ragoon. I am a fan of their yellow sauce. My God. I could eat it out of a bowl. The crab ragoon had bits of crab with cream cheese, with onion, and the fabulous yellow sauce.
Then we ordered, there were 4 of us. It was my son’s 22^nd birthday. Had I read the other Unilocal reviews, and taken heed, I’d not have eaten here. Well, I’m glad I used my head. I ordered chicken and scallops, the rest of our party had steak and shrimp, and my son had steak, shrimp and chicken.
The cook came out and did a show complete with spatulas, and flipping food, and throwing shrimp, and the famous onion volcano that I put on Youtube.
To make the fire show even cooler, he turned down the lights, so we could see it. Otherwise, it’d be too bright with no effect.
The food was everything it always is. Tons, and well, steak is kind of gross to me, but the others liked it. My scallops were huge. As big as my fist. There were four of them, enough when cut, to load my plate.
At the end, they served us ice cream, singing happy birthday to my son, with a candle in his ice cream. I intend to literally return to this place every week, if not, every other week, just for the shrimp tempura alone. This is definitely a gem in Independence.

I haven’t been to many Japanese steak house’s. But Samurai Chef is a great place to go. The food is always delicious, and the chef’s are entertaining, they always have a joke or trick up their sleeve. It’s a little pricey but you get HUGE helpings. I always end up taking home leftovers. my favorite part is were they throw you the shrimp. I’m getting better at catching it. If you liked mixed drinks get the samurai special, its out of this world!

Holy hell. I never thought I would go to a sushi place and not like the sushi. The place was DEAD for a Saturday. We arrived around 7:30pm and it was completely empty except for the host and the sushi «chef». That should have been our first clue. But since we didn’t know Independence well enough to improvise, we decided to give them a chance.
Please don’t take this as any kind of hate speak, but our sushi «chef» was a Mexican dude who couldn’t have been older than 19. His sushi rolls proved his lack of finesse and experience. The rolls were very loosely packed. The rice looked as if it was just thrown on there. Each piece that I picked up was on the brink of falling apart in my soy sauce. The BF and I have never had any remaining pieces left when we go out to eat sushi. Usually we’re debating over who gets what piece at the end or if we should order more. But here, we actually left about half of two different rolls on our plate.

Pretty surprised this has yet to be reviewed. At the same time, it’s pretty tragic stuff anyway.
Samurai Chef is like the Gojo of the east. Same crappy food, even worse service. At least you are spared from Gojo’s «magic yellow sauce» at this locale. The Micronesian chef’s are also a bit more talkative.
As with all teppenyaki in KC, be very cautious and keep your expectations horribly low.